Zany definitions only a parent can appreciate
Amnesia: Condition that enables a woman who has gone through labor to have more children.
Baby book: Where you put locks of the baby’s hair and pictures of him naked so you can embarrass him when he’s a teenager.
Bathroom: Where your child doesn’t need to go until you’re backing the car out of the driveway.
Bottle feeding: An opportunity for Dad to get up at 2 a.m., too.
Contractions: What are to cramps as Lake Michigan is to a puddle.
Defense: What you’d better have around de yard if you’re going to let de children outside.
Deja vu: When you respond to your child the same way your mother responded to you.
Double fault: When both your children are guilty.
Equations: The point at which you need a tutor to explain your child’s homework to you.
Family planning: The art of spacing your children the proper distance apart to keep you on the edge of financial disaster.
Fifth dimension: Where all the missing puzzle pieces, train tracks, Lincoln Logs and racecars are.
Full name: What you call your child when you are mad at him.
Genes: The reason your daughter will grow up to blame her thighs on you.
Hearing aid: A child who informs you of all the rotten things his brother says when you are out of earshot.
Hearsay: What toddlers do when anyone mutters a naughty word.
Impregnable: A woman whose memory of labor is still vivid.
Independent: How we want our children to be as long as they do everything we say.
“Look out!”: What it’s too late for your child to do by the time you scream it.
Manual dexterity: Your ability to reach the wipes, open them with your teeth and keep a baby with an open diaper pinned to the changing table.
Milestone: The moment when you stop worrying about something hurting the baby and start worrying about the baby hurting something.
Modesty: What women in labor have to get over.
Nothing: The standard answer to “What did you do in school today?”
On the wagon: Where three children insist on being when the wagon holds only one.
Opinionated: Anyone who knows more than you do about child care.
Ow: The first word spoken by children with older siblings.
Paradox: Two obstetricians.
Preconceive: To get pregnant before you intend to.
Prenatal: When your life was still somewhat your own.
Prepared childbirth: A contradiction in terms.
Puddle: A small body of water that draws to it other small bodies, wearing dry shoes.
Rationalize: To wait to get back into shape until you last child is born.
Reversible: Dirty on both sides.
Saturation point: What a diaper usually reaches before you reach the diaper.
Second trimester: The second three months of pregnancy when you ask yourself the question, “Will my husband notice if I eat this gallon of ice cream and side of beef before he gets home?”
Separatist: A teenager who would rather die than be seen with his parents.
Show off: Any child who is more talented than yours.
Sickness: What keeps kids in bed all week, until Saturday morning.
Spunk: One of those traits that are much cuter in other people’s children than in your own.
Sterilize: What you do to your first baby’s pacifier by boiling it, and to your last baby’s pacifier by blowing on it.
Storeroom: The distance required between supermarket aisles to ensure children in shopping carts can’t dismantle the merchandise.
Straight flush: When a child flushes the toilet without using it.
Sugar daddy: A father who lets the kids eat junk when Mom’s not around.
Temper tantrums: What you should keep to a minimum so as not to upset the children.
Thunderstorm: A chance to see how many family members can fit in one bed.
Time flies: The reason your child will be wearing diapers one day and a purple Mohawk the next.
Top bunk: Where you should never put a child wearing Superman jammies.
Town crier: Child who finds a reason to burst into tears every time you take him out in public.
Ultra sound: The noise your crying baby makes.
Unarmed: A doll who has been disciplined by your sweet little daughter.
Unrest: What parents get when a child is sick.
Utopia: That fictional wonderland where children reply, “Yes, Mother, whatever you say.”
Verbal: Able to whine in words.
Weaker sex: The kind you have after the kids have worn you out.
Wear and tear: What happens when children and clothes come in contact.
Whodunit: None of the children who live at your house.
Whoops: An exclamation that translates roughly into “Get a sponge.”
Zzzzzzzz: What you will do soundly again when your children are grown and able to keep what they’re really doing a secret from you.
(A great big thanks to my friend, Ginger, mother of two, who found and sent this excerpt to me in the mail.)
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